KSMR-FM
KSMR-FM (102.7 FM), known to the listeners as "The New 102.7 The Maryann", is a radio station licensed to the city of Belle Chasse, Louisiana and serving the Lafayette metropolitan area on 102.7 MHz and owned by Entercom through licensee CBS Radio Stations Inc. KSMR-FM airs a country music format known as "The New 102.7 The Marianne." KSMR-FM's studios and offices are located at the CBS/Entercom headquarters in Lafayette, Louisiana. The station has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 49,000 watts, with its transmitter located south of Church Point, Louisiana. KSMR-FM broadcasts in the HD Radio format with Dolby Digital audio, with its HD2 signal simulcasting a classic hits format known as "The New Fun Maryann at 102.7 HD2", playing hits from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even the 1990s, but with a Marianne twist. KSMR-FM's HD3 channel features a classic hip-hop-leaning rhythmic CHR format known as "Jammin' 101.3" which is also simulcast on translator K234HP 101.3 FM Lake Charles. History On June 18, 1983, the station signed on with a Top 40 music format, similar to the other CBS Radio FM stations - and branded as "Hitradio 103 KVHR" with the KVHR-FM '''call letters. KVHR was not a traditional Top 40 music format of the time as the playlist was more stringently limited to 30 songs. The original KVHR disc jockey staff consisted of Lou Simon, Dave Donovan (whose real name is Joe Cipriano), Chris Lance, Todd Parker (replaced by Jack Armstrong several months later), and Mark Hanson. In 1986, the Top 40 format ran its course on 102.7 due to its lackluster ratings. The mellow rock music format and heritage KNX-FM call letters were returned under the new branding "Quality Rock". On July 12, 1991, at 2 p.m., KVHR-FM flipped to a classic rock/classic hits format, and branded itself as "The New Paramount Pictures 102 FM, All Rock and Roll Oldies" with the '''KPMO-FM call letters. "Paramount" focused its new oldies format on the late 1960s and the entire 1970s decade with an emphasis on only classic rock oldies that did not include pop, bubble gum, disco, or doo-wop music. The listener Arbitron ratings for KPMO-FM went from 18th to 3rd place by the end of 1993, making the new format an immediate success.14 The station kept the KPMO-FM call letters, but would only quickly identify its call sign once at the top of the hour per FCC station identification requirements. The format would later evolve towards classic rock of the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, and re-branded itself as "Paramount Pictures 102 FM, All Rock & Roll Classics" in 1996. On October 7, 1996, the station flipped to an adult hits format as "The New Star 102.7", along with a cover of Marshall Crenshaw's "Marianne" from the 1993 Columbia Pictures film Marianne by Celine Dion as the station's first song and'' a change to new '''KSTR-FM' call letters. The station added 80's music to its playlist in March 1997 (with the new slogan of "The Hits of the 70's and 80's"). By October 1999, KSTR would drop the 70's music, and added 90's music to its playlist, with a shift to Hot AC, while still being branded as "Star 102.7". At 6 PM on June 3, 2000, KSTR-FM was rebranded as "The New Mary Poppins 102.7". In 2000, as part of AMFM Media's merger with Clear Channel, KSTR-FM was sold off to Infinity Broadcasting (renamed CBS Radio in 2005). By this time, the hot AC format had entered a period of decline. On March 16, 2001, at 5:00 p.m., KSTR's hot AC format was flipped to an urban-leaning rhythmic CHR format as''' KJMN,' "Jammin' 102.7", based on that of sister station WPGC-FM in Washington, D.C.. The last song on "The New Mary Poppins 102.7" was "Last Dance" by Donna Summer, while the first song on "Jammin'" was "Stutter" by Joe. The first station playing such a format on FM in the Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans markets, KJMN-FM would soon become a regular Top 5 station and often has been the #1 station in the market. Coincidentally, that same format had been proposed as a replacement twice before, but was rejected for fear that it would not work in the Lafayette market. The success of "Jammin' 102.7" led to the launch of rival KHXT ("Hot 107.9") in 2003, which had a limited effect on KJMN's success. KHXT was the sister station of Mainstream Top 40-formatted KSMB, whose once-dominant hold on Hartford's Top 40 scene would take a major beating in the wake of KJMN's arrival, which in turn may have served as one of the reason behind KHXT's debut. In August 2006, ''R&R moved KJMN from the Rhythmic Airplay panel to the Urban Contemporary Airplay panel, but in May 2007, placed the station back on the Rhythmic panel due to a shift in its direction which now favors a more broader Rhythmic playlist. This format redirection was done to protect from excessive competition with then-Urban formatted KHXT, thus giving the market two Hip Hop/R&B stations with partially different formats at the time. But even with the shift, KJMN continued to lead the competition in the Hartford Nielsen Audio rating books. On June 21, 2007, KJMN flipped to country as "The New 102.7 The Marianne, Acadiana's Fresh New Maryann Country", launching with 10,000 new Marianne country songs in a row commercial-free, with the first song being "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" by Big & Rich. The launch of "The Marianne", and most of the initial imaging production was created by Krash Creative Solutions, and was also simulcast live from the main stage at the Country Radio Seminar in Nashville, being heard by hundreds of radio and record executives. On June 23, 2007, KJMN changed their current call letters to KSMR-FM to go with the "Marianne" branding. After playing 10,000 songs in a row, they continued with an additional 15,000 songs still commercial-free. On July 4, 2007, The Marianne began adding jocks, with Amanda Dianne Foutley and Brenda Chapman doing mid-days, Danny Antonucci on afternoons and the Nite Marianne with Mark "Tic Tak" Allen on nights. On July 17, 2007, The Marianne brought in The All-New Marianne Country Morning Show with Diane Shannon, Gill Alexander, LeBaron Meyers, Marcus Osborne, Sue Hall and Eddie King. On February 2, 2017, CBS Radio announced it would merge with Entercom. The merger was approved on November 9, 2017, and was consummated on the 17th. Category:Lafayette, LA Category:Louisiana Category:101.3 FM Category:Entercom Communications Category:Stations broadcasting in HD Radio Category:Country Music radio stations Category:Country radio stations Category:Baton Rouge Category:Baton Rouge, LA Category:102.7 FM Category:Stations using "The Marianne"